Ireland – A Travelogue
Part One
A once in a lifetime, bucket list opportunity came to me in the form of a trip to Ireland. My daughter, Laura, heard that Denise Schmidt, who is an educator during the school year and a travel agent for students in the summer, would be planning a trip for adults. Her business is called Travel by Denise – CCTC. Although I did not know Denise personally, I did know who she was because she lives in our small town and attends my church. She has taken students on overseas trips and has gained quite a bit of experience in planning and making travel arrangements. So, I contacted her and started making preparations for the trip of a lifetime.
Laura decided she would go with me and I’m so glad she did! She had several reservations about going. First, my daughter is a high school teacher, and the trip was scheduled right after the end of the school year. Laura has four children, three of them will be in high school next year and then, there’s her youngest child who is only nine years old. If it’s been a while since you were in school or since you had kids in school, you will remember what a busy time of the year this is. Secondly, her family farms and ranches. That’s another whole level of activity at this time of the year! And lastly, she was a little concerned because of all the turmoil in the world this year. She has people who depend upon her and she wasn’t keen on taking chances of anything going wrong. In the end, she decided to go and I’m grateful.
We were afforded the chance to plan ahead and make monthly payments, which helped make it easy on the budget. Denise works with an organization called Passports and I would recommend that you check them out. Of course, this is my only experience with them and just like most travel companies, I’m sure a great experience depends a lot upon the travel agent and travel director.
Denise walked us through all the steps necessary to obtain our UK Visa. She had lots of pointers on what we might need for our trip and was a calming influence when we had questions or concerns. There are websites and downloads to help all along the way and she was great to share those with us. The success of this trip was determined by her knowledge and experience. If you have any questions that I can answer regarding my own experience, I would be happy to have that conversation with you. You can connect with Denise through her business Facebook page or Instagram: https://www.facebook.com/cupcakecastles. Her website is https://www.cupcakecastlestravel.com/deniseschmidt. Just as a reminder, I am not associated with Passports nor am I affiliated with Denise’s connection to Passports.
In Part Two of this travelogue, I will share our schedule, our flight experiences, our beautiful accommodations, and the first few days of our 10-day jaunt. We had an absolutely wonderful time and I’m looking forward to telling you all about it!